MINOT AIR FORCE BASE - Ken Seven writes, "Regarding
last weeks Filer's Files #27, I can verify verbally, and have the papers
to prove that I was stationed at a radar installation about 22 miles south
of Minot during 1966 to 1968 with the 786th Minot Radar Station."
I was involved in the incident alluded to your Files last week and in
the book "Above Top Secret" by Timothy Good, that states on page
300, "The much respected researcher Raymond Fowler, who once served
with the USAF Security Service, had revealed details of a NORAD-related
incident that occurred on 5 March 1967. NORAD radar tracked an uncorrelated
target descending over the Minuteman missile site at Minot AFB (91st Strategic
Missile Wing), North Dakota. Strike teams were notified immediately and
sighted a metallic disk-shaped UFO with bright flashing lights moving slowly
over the site. Three armed trucks chased the intruder until it stopped
and hovered at 5000 feet. The teams had orders to capture the UFO undamaged
if it landed, but it then began circling over a launch control facility.
F-106 jets were about to be scrambled when the UFO climbed vertically
and disappeared at high speed. Fowler has received confirmation from undisclosed
sources that there have been other instances when UFOs have hovered directly
over nuclear missile sites."

Anyway, your mentioning this incident makes me think
it was the same one that I was involved in. My "experience"
was from an entirely different perspective than from the air but only adds
validity and depth to your case. I was involved in an indirect-direct sort
of way with the missile incident involving a UFO. My friend, who was on
the shift manning the radar scopes, during this incident, even though we
were told later that the incident was classified, wrote a letter (brave
of him, or, naive) to the then military's spokesperson Dr. Hynek. He actually
tried to correct Hynek, who at that time was saying publicly, "If
there were solid aerial UFOs that our military radar systems would be tracking
them." In other words, officially and publicly, our radar are not
giving evidence to validate the public's claims, which my friend, and all
of us knew quite the contrary. He wrote Hynek a letter saying the evidence
is there, they are solid, they are maneuvering, and they were at that time
showing a lot of interest in the missile sites in North Dakota. Not only
that, there were two radar site fixes on that UFO with both the 786th's
and Minot AFB; (see below), This pretty much ruled out that our radar site
was faulty; plus, you had the Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) ground observation
of it also.

I was in a position to verify the tampering with missile
sites by the UFOs. There were a group of about ten NCOs, that were a maintenance
crew at a missile site, who phoned our radar site reporting they had a
ground visual of a UFO (or UFOs?) doing very odd maneuvering near their
missile site. The UFOs would drop down from out of sight to about a mile
in elevation and stop at that point; then float like a leaf to about 500
feet? They would reverse the floating leaf back to the mile elevation,
and then repeat this maneuver. I have forgotten how many times, because
it may have been several UFOs at one time. Only one dropped down as if
to land. Meanwhile our radar got a fix on it such that it indicated a
very real unknown/s. These were solid maneuvering object/s at the site.
Our protocol required us then to phone the radar systems at Minot AFB
for them to also get a fix on the unknown. They also got a fix on their
radar, which meant, for a certainty, that it was a very real unknown.
Protocol required that jets be scrambled to intercept and to identify the
unknown. In this case, they sent two jets to intercept/identify the UFO,
which meant, it wasn't ours.

Because of my job function, I unfortunately had to leave
my access to this activity at the critical point in which, one of the NCOs
said, "Several of the crew have taken one of the vehicles to get a
closer look because a UFO has descended behind a nearby hill because it
looks like it is going to land"! I could not find out later what
the conclusion of that incident was. I did hear later from an officer who
came to our radar site, "That the jets were unable to intercept (and
that even though we had two radar fixes and the ground visuals, the jets
could not lock onto or see the UFO/s. The radars showed that the UFOs
and the jets converged or should have been seen visually? The UFOs would
climb vertically and shoot upward from the mile high level to out of sight
at more than either 3,000 or 5,000 mph, which my friend in the radar room
corroborated.

I can confirm that the military were well aware of the
UFO activity and that in this Minot instance, it was associated with a
missile site, and the military at normal operational levels were dealing
with such activity as standard operating procedure. "They were told
to track but keep it quiet." Yet, publicly, Hynek was saying, there
was no solid radar evidence. I vaguely recall that my friend was visited
either by Hynek, or a representative of his. It was, as if, Hynek was
not in the loop about the military's real stance; that he had to come and
visit the radar site to get a confirmation rather than the military offering
the evidence to his Blue Book investigative team. If they did, it was
probably filtered; it was probably about this time that Hynek's thinking
began to change, if I recall. Well that's my been my "experiences"
while in the USAF ADC. Thanks to Ken Seven.

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE - John Hickman writes, "I
read your article about the B-52 at Minot with much interest- and I have
a slightly similar story that may interest you. I was stationed at Offutt
Air FB (55SRW) near Omaha from 1981 to 1984. Around 1982 or '83, a story
was making the rounds about either one or several UFOs being seen over
several missile launch sites in Montana. (I believe they would have been
under the control of Malstrom AFB.) The interesting thing about the sightings
was that shortly after the occurrences, several of the missile guidance
computers located in the missile warheads had their data banks wiped clean-
so they couldn't be launched- launch and preprogrammed course data was
just gone. Since we were co-located with Strategic Air Command (SAC)
Headquarters, I am reasonably sure that this was a real occurrence that
leaked out. At any rate, I have always wondered what they were trying
to tell us, it is obvious we were pretty much helpless against their technology,
or maybe just a warning that we'd better play with each other nice or they'd
take our toys away. Thanks to John Hickman wtcthsky@hotmail.com

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MINOT AIR FORCE BASE - In Captain Kevin Randle's new
book Scientific Ufology he reports on a Project Blue Book case dated October
24, 1968, when missile crews, control personnel and maintenance personnel
observed a UFO in the vicinity of the base. The following is the tape between
the air controllers and the B-52 crew with call sign JAG Three one.

At 0330 hours: The controllers received the information
that there was a UFO 24 miles to the northwest. A B-52 jet bomber (JAG
31) flying at 2000 feet was on a calibration check and requests a clearance
from radar personnel.

At 0334 "MIB (Minot) approach control does JAG 31
have clearance to WT fix at Flight Level 2000?"

JAG 31, Roger climb out on a heading of 290 climb and
maintain 5000. Stand by for higher altitude. We're trying to get it from
center now.

At 0335, the controller asked, "And JAG 31 on your
way out to the WT fix request you look out toward your one o'clock position
for the next fifteen miles and see if you see any orange glows out there?
"Roger, roger glows 31, "Someone is seeing UFOs again!"
"Roger I see a........ (Rest of transmission garbled)

At 0352, The controller then radioed, "Three one,
the UFO is being picked up by weather's radar also. Should be at our one
o'clock position three miles now"

The pilot said, "We have nothing on our airborne
radar and I'm in some pretty thick haze now and unable to see out that
way."

At 0358, the pilot then requested an instrument guided
approach, and received instructions. The pilot called, and then the transmitter
went dead, but they could hear instructions from the ground. The controller
asked them to squawk ident," which meant to use the aircraft's transponder
which would paint the controller's radar with a large, glowing blip with
the aircraft's identification.

At 0400, the controller then radioed, "JAG 31 if
you hear me squawk ident...JAG 31 ident observed. Cleared for the approach
attempt. Contact on frequency 271 decimal three and you're cleared for
the low approach. They continued to have radio problems for another couple
of minutes.

At 0402, they were able to communicate easily. The pilot
said, "Our UFO was off to our left side when we started penetration.

"Roger, understand you did see something on your
left side." "We had a radar return at about a mile and a quarter,
at nine o'clock position for about the time we left 200 to 14..."They
discussed the troubles with the transmission and then, the controller asked,
"Affirmative. I was wondering how far out did you see that UFO?"

"He was about one and a half miles off our left
wing at 35 miles when we started in and stayed with us 'til about 10."

"I wonder if that could have been your radio troubles?"

"I don't know.... But that's exactly when they started.
"At 0413, Jag 31 are you observing any more UFOs? Negative on radar.
We can't see anything visually.

JAG 31, request you have someone report to base ops after
you land.

What we have, then, was a group of sightings made by
men on the ground, at the missile sites scattered around the base. There
was radar sightings from ground and weather's radar. There were visual
sightings from the crew of the B-52, and an airborne radar sighting where
the target traveled at 3,000 miles per hour. Scope photographs were taken.
There were sightings made by S.Sgt. Bond the FSC at Nov. Flight, S.Sgt.
Smith at Oscar-1, Julelt, and Mike Flight Team and a number of men in widely
scattered locations. The object landed at location AA-43 and the entire
observation lasted for 45 minutes. Fourteen other people in separate locations
also reported the UFO. Security alarm were activated for both the outer
and inner ring at the missile sites. When the guards arrived at the outer
door it was open and the combination lock on the inner door had been moved.

Editors Note: The case in my estimation was never investigated
properly. Project Blue Book personnel never sent a representative and the
case was essentially written off despite the interest of several Strategic
Air Command generals including 15th Air Force's Major General Nichols.
The sighting was officially explained by on November 13, by Lt. Col. Hector
Quintanilla who wrote, "The following conclusions have been reached
after a thorough study of the data submitted to Foreign Technology Division.
The ground visual sightings appear to be of the star Sirius and the B-52,
which was flying in the area. The B-52 radar contact and the temporary
loss of the UHF transmission could be attributed to a plasma similar to
ball lightning. The air visual from the B-52 could be the star Vega, which
was on the horizon at the time, or it could be a light on the ground, or
possibly a plasma. No further investigation by the Foreign Technology Division
is contemplated.

This is a classic Blue Book case where dozens of Air
Force personnel who see B-52s and stars nightly have their testimony doubted.
They know when they've seen a UFO. In this case the scientists doing the
Condon report agreed that this was a real UFO. The apparent damage to the
missile site and disruption of B-52 radio transmissions was in my opinion
a threat to primary nuclear offensive systems and should not have been
trivialized. The records speak for themselves. This article was taken from
Scientific Ufology written by Captain Kevin D. Randle USAFR. I consider
this his finest book and recommend its reading. This case like thousands
of others are explained away with any simple mundane explanation that can
be found. Yet many cases involve the tampering of key government weapon
systems. It appears Quintanilla either did not care or had instructions
to write off most of the sightings with any available excuse. I wonder
why the reports were white washed, while the Air Force's scientific advisor
Alan Hynek was coming to the opposite conclusion that, UFOs were real?